Binding was observed only for the Sas::Ptp10D pair. The mean signal value for Sas::Ptp10D was 30- to 43-fold higher than for any of the three controls, and these differences were highly statistically significant (p < 0.0001). These data show that Sas binds to Ptp10D and not to other RPTP-AP fusion AC220 in vivo proteins, but do not address the possibility that 10D-AP is “sticky” and can bind nonselectively to any Fc fusion protein. To evaluate this, we conducted the experiment

in Figure 3B, in which 10D-AP was mixed at an ∼1:1 molar ratio with two other Fc fusion proteins, Unc5-Fc and Fasciclin II (FasII)-Fc, with one of the controls from the Figure 3A experiment, Sas-Fc::Lar-AP, serving as the blank. Eight identical replicates of each binding reaction were assessed. As in Figure 3A, binding was observed only between Ptp10D and Sas. The mean signal value for Sas::Ptp10D was 13- to 32-fold higher than for the two Fc controls, and the differences were highly statistically significant (p < 0.0001 for both the Unc5::10D and FasII::10D controls). The AlphaScreen relies on a proximity-dependent chemical reaction to measure binding between two proteins bound to “donor” and “acceptor” beads. This assay can work well for low-affinity interactions, because the high concentrations of protein on the beads facilitate bead-bead interactions via avidity effects. Cell-cell interactions mediated by adhesion Sorafenib mw molecules are strongly influenced

by avidity. Indeed, the AlphaScreen worked extremely well for Dscam, which is a homophilic adhesion molecule. The signal due to homophilic binding of the 7.13.25 isoform was 178-fold higher than that for heterophilic binding of 7.13.25 to 7.8.25, which differs only in exon 3 (see Wojtowicz et al., 2007 for nomenclature). We were also able to detect concentration-dependent binding of Sas to Ptp10D using the AlphaScreen. However, the signal-to-background ratio else (Sas-Fc::10D-AP versus Sas-Fc::69D-AP or Sas-Fc::blank) was only ∼6-fold (Figure S3), so this assay was inferior to the ELISA for this ligand-receptor pair. These results show that Sas and Ptp10D selectively interact with each other, but do not define whether their

in vivo interactions are likely to be in cis (between proteins on the same cell surface), in trans (between proteins on different cell surfaces), or both. We used a cell aggregation assay to evaluate whether Ptp10D and Sas can interact in trans. This was done by making stable Schneider 2 (S2) cell lines expressing full-length Ptp10D and a Sas-mCD8-GFP fusion protein. Ptp10D-expressing cells formed small clusters ( Figure 3C), consistent with the observation that 10D-AP binds to ectopically expressed Ptp10D in embryos ( Figure S1). Sas-expressing cells did not aggregate ( Figure 3D). When the cell lines were mixed, we observed Ptp10D-expressing cell clusters that were associated with one to several Sas-expressing cells ( Figure 3E).